1. Field
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus and an image processing program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known a phenomenon that dark area gradation of image data is blacked out by shooting a subject having large difference in brightness. Therefore, in inventions of Patent Document 1, the gradation is compressed by increasing the gain of the dark area gradation, and thereby the black-out of the dark area gradation is improved (for example, Japanese Patent No. 2,663,189).
However, in the aforementioned inventions of Patent Document 1, as the gradation of an image is compressed, the impression of the whole image will also be lighter. As a result, there was a problem in that the impression of lightness differs between an image subjected to a gradation compression processing and an image not subjected to the gradation compression processing, thus providing odd feeling to a user. Moreover, on the contrary of the aforementioned black-out of the dark area gradation, although a technology for improving the white washout of a highlight area by way of gradation compression has been considered, there was a problem in that suppression of the white washout reduces the contrast of the highlight area.